Table Of Content

Issues of Identity in Music Education Narratives and Practices A volume in Advances in Music Education Research Linda K. Thompson and Mark Robin Campbell, Series Editors Advances in Music Education Research Linda K. Thompson and Mark Robin Campbell, Series Editors Diverse Methodologies in the Study of Music Teaching and Learning, 2007 Edited by Linda K. Thompson and Mark Robin Campbell Research Perspectives: Thought and Practice in Music Education, 2008 Edited by Linda K. Thompson and Mark Robin Campbell Editors Linda K. Thompson Lee University Cleveland, TN Mark Robin Campbell The Crane School of Music The State University of New York at Potsdam Potsdam, NY Editorial Board William Bauer Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH Susan Wharton Conkling Eastman School of Music University of Rochester Rochester, NY Colleen Conway University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI Lisa R. Hunter The State University of New York College at Buffalo Buffalo, NY Joshua A. Russell The Hartt School University of Hartford West Hartford, CT Peter Whiteman Institute of Early Childhood Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia Advances in Music Education Research is published yearly in April by the Music Education Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. All editorial correspondence and manuscripts should be sent to Linda Thompson or Mark Robin Campbell. Issues of Identity in Music Education Narratives and Practices Edited by Linda K. Thompson Lee University Mark Robin Campbell The Crane School of Music State University of New York at Potsdam INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC. Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Issues of identity in music education narratives and practices / edited by Linda K. Thompson, Mark Robin Campbell. p. cm. -- (Advances in music education research) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-61735-017-7 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-61735-018-4 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-61735-019-1 (e-book) 1. Music--Instruction and study. 2. Identity (Psychology) I. Thompson, Linda K. II. Campbell, Mark Robin. MT1.I85 2010 780.71--dc22 2010010172 Copyright © 2010 Information Age Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America CoNTENTs Foreword .......................................................................................................vii Linda K. Thompson and Mark Robin Campbell 1 Potentials and Possibilities for Narrative Inquiry ...............................1 D. Jean Clandinin 2 Fostering and Sustaining Music Teacher Identity in the Student Teaching Experience ............................................................15 Tami J. Draves 3 Inside/Outside: School Music On “The Line” ..................................37 Wesley D. Brewer 4 “And That Is Why Girls Do Not Compose”: A Qualitative Examination of Undergraduate Compositional Identity .................65 Bruce Allen Carter 5 Hearing the Voice of Non-Singers: Culture, Context, and Connection ...................................................................................83 Colleen Whidden 6 Planning and Assessment Practices of High School Band Directors .............................................................................................109 Dale E. Bazan 7 Two Voices on the Discussant Role ..................................................127 On Being a Discussant Peter Whiteman Close to the Music of What Happens: A Discussant Evokes a Poem Regina Murphy About the Contributors .............................................................................153 v FoREwoRd Linda K. Thompson and Mark Robin Campbell This volume of Advances in Music Education Research brings together a col- lection of studies in music education that in one way or another focus on issues of identity in music education. At a real and fundamental level, all individuals construct stories about themselves, about others, and about the places and spaces they inhabit. These stories carry powerful messages about hosts of ideas, often pointing to discourses that create ways of being or ways of acting in the world. Plus, they carry discourses on ways of thinking, ways of judging, and ways of making decisions. Within the professional arena, discourses provide opportunities to think about how we reflect, reproduce, and challenge our notions of what is real, natural, or ethical. As we read and reflect on each of the studies in the current volume, we have opportunities to explore many things, including the different aims and methodologies used to construct an understanding of what was researched, as well as to make connections to curricular and teaching practices. We also have opportunities to think about concerns or issues that may arise from our readings. In each of these cases, we have opportunities to construct stories or narratives about what is meaningful to us at this time and place and to consider how our stories may be meaningful to others. In other words, we too create narratives that have power to enact practices. This is the focus of this volume—narratives and practices that deal with issues of identity in music education. Issues of Identity in Music Education, pages vii–xiv Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. vii viii  L. K. THOMPSON and M. R. CAMPBELL In the opening essay, Jean Clandinin discusses the potential and possibilities for narrative inquiry. Clandinin helps us not only understand what narrative inquiry might be, but also to see that, as with all human interactions, there are accompanying benefits and risks. As she makes clear, to understand narrative inquiry is to understand that we are involved in a relational inquiry. To help us better understand what it means to be involved in a relational inquiry, Clandinin offers six key ideas. In narrative inquiry, she says, (a) sto- ried experiences are told; (b) we, as researchers, are part of the stories being told; (c) three arenas or commonplaces act as and specify dimensions of an inquiry space—temporality, sociality, and place; (d) conceptually, inquiry is a recursive, reflective and reflexive process—there is a “living, telling, retell- ing, and reliving” involved; (e) procedurally, work is characterized by phases that involve composing various kinds of texts; and (f) ethics pervade the whole of inquiry and are at the heart of all endeavors. Given these six key ideas, Clandinin offers brief accounts of three studies for us to examine. As “stories of studies,” as well as “narratives of narrative inquiry,” these three studies raise questions and offer lessons, insights, and points of reflections for both researchers and research-educators. For ex- ample, one lesson to learn is that narrative inquiry allows us to articulate and honor multiple realities, particularly ones beyond those we bring and ascribe to self and others. One insight we gain, or are reminded of, is the power of emotive life in human living as a source of knowledge—including pathos, vulnerability, and hope. As points of reflection, the studies offer glimpses of practice, plus indicate how we might use narrative inquiry in our work as music educator-researchers. We think especially of narrative inquiry’s capacity to help us theorize more fully many of the human relational aspects involved in musical learning relationships and in musical organizations. Student– teacher relationships in the context of music making, listening, or creating come to mind. And lastly, these studies, along with the key ideas, generate questions that lie behind, or, rather, at the heart of research—questions of ethical conduct. Representation, truth, power, and identity seem especially important topics in the conduct and reporting of research. In preparing these short introductory notes to Wesley Brewer’s study, “Inside/Outside: School Music on ‘The Line,’” we circulated the manu- script among several long-time career music educators who identified with being a band director, either currently or at one time in their lives, to get feedback on it. The responses from the participants in this rather select focus group were fascinating. Three themes seem to characterize their readings: (a) embeddedness of race, language, and class in music education; (b) embeddedness of division as a paradigmatic structure in music education; and (c) teacher as potential change agent. Race, language, class, and culture are embedded in music education, whether we acknowledge them, hide from them, are ambivalent to them, Foreword  ix or actively seek to address the issues each engenders. Brewer’s study dares to speak about each. Division is a dominant concept and practice within the professional dis- course and social and material construction of “Band in the United States.” Its omnipresence can be seen in performance repertoire and how students are situated within actual music making through such common practices as audition, part assignment, and chair placement. Division is highly present in various organizations and structures that often function as curricu- lum and instructional models—Solo and Ensemble Contest, Field Show Competition, All-State Band, Honor Band, Training Band, Reading Band, and others. Division is equally present in the “win/loose” or “success” narrative that animates a large part of its pedagogy, the manifestation of which can be seen in the pursuit of flawless performance, community recogni- tion, grades, awards, ratings, and rankings that accompany membership in the band. The idea of who is “inside/outside” should come as no surprise to us as we read Brewer’s study. This divide is yet another manifestation of the band “paradigm” (Bartel, 2004); it is a commonplace among the music education profession, as well as within the American culture and education system in general. Our bands, however, can be places and islands of refuge for students, as Kieran, Sophia, and Lucia, the participants in Brewer’s study, tell us. Yet by providing “safety and security” from the very race, language, class, and culture issues that acted as dividing elements in this study, the band program perpetuated and further strengthened a division of “us/them.” Brewer’s study highlights just how difficult it is to study important things like race, language, class, and culture within paradigms built out of divisiveness. The third and “take home” theme that we were able to detect from the informants is that music educators can be agents of change within a host of socially just arenas. It will take more than a matter of reading the MENC: The National Association for Music Education (2003) policy statement on inclusivity and nodding in agreement. It may take removing ourselves from the insulating and isolating assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that create the music education world we find ourselves in. Action aimed at any kind of justice, like most things, as Eunice Boardman often averred, begins with awareness. This is Wesley Brewer’s contribution—developing awareness of self, space, and place in relation with others. Teacher attrition in music education is a significant and growing issue. While causes for this attrition vary, experiences that strengthen music teach- ers’ professional identities may contribute to the goal of teacher retention. Professional mentoring relationships, in particular, aim at nurturing novice educators in ways that will expand perceptions of role-identity. In “Foster- ing and Sustaining Music Teacher Identity in the Student Teaching Experi- ence,” Tami Draves exemplifies Clandinin’s idea of narrative as relational as